ZoomBarPlus: Use Touch Pro2, Diamond2 Zoom Bar as a D-Pad

The zoom bar on the HTC Touch Pro2 and Diamond2 (Pure) allows zooming in/out while using certain applications like Opera Mobile, Excel, messaging, and some others. Personally, I don’t use the bar at all because I find that it’s either poorly implemented or I simply don’t use the apps that support it. Well, I may actually start using it now, but not for what you may think.

In the video below, we show you a hack from thx1200 that adds D-Pad actions to the zoom bar. So when you’re in an app that's not "zoom aware," the bar can be used to move/scroll vertically, activate items and more.


ZoomBarPlus is still in beta, but you can grab it from XDA-developers. Make sure to give the developer some feedback, if you decide to give it a go, so he can optimize it for the next release. Features available in the beta version are listed below.

Current features of v1.0 (Beta):

- Assign key strokes to tap, double tap, long tap, swipe left, and swipe right gestures on the zoom bar.
- Swipe gestures can "repeat" keystrokes, which is good for simulating holding down a D-Pad button, for example.
- Default actions: swipe left for D-Pad up, swipe right for D-Pad down, swipe-hold either direction to repeat, double tap for action (center) button, and long tap for backspace (Total Commander).
- Vibration feedback for certain actions.
- Use a registry editor to change configuration settings (a config app will come soon).
- VERY low resources used -- runs as a TRUE service and uses as close as 0% CPU as is possible by an app like this.

Notes: There’s also a similar mod, called ZoomAdds. It’s missing some key features like repetitive strokes and the action function, so for now, I prefer ZoomBarPlus. Touch Pro2 users can also map D-Pad and other key strokes to their hardware keys by using Rhodium Keyboard Controller.